First Looks: HP Mini 1035NR

Today my HP Mini 1035NR netbook arrived, and I was extremely happy to get my hands on a new toy. Upon opening it up and starting it up I liked how bright the screen is. It's small and light, and looks very cool.

The keyboard is spacious, and I needed only a few minutes to get used to typing fast on it. I do need more time though to become proficient in using the lesser keys, including the Home and End keys, and the function keys which are smaller.

The wireless works very nicely, picking up my home network easily. It's speedy, and downloads stuff very quickly.

The trackpad and its buttons are very responsive. The two mouse buttons being on the side are not a problem for me.

I've only been using this unit for about 2 hours now, but so far I'm a happy customer.

 

I got the 1010 for my wife as a vday gift. Staples had a price mistake so I got it for $235. I cant believe we got an xp laptop for the price of an ipod. lol

 

I have had a 1035 for 2 months now and I think its great. I am eyeing a 2140 however but I want to wait for the prices to come down and availibility to go up. Also the High Res version.

Edit: also adding RAM to these is really nice and easy. I put in a 2GB Corsair chip in about 45 seconds. Look up the video on how to do it, its great.

 

I dual booted Windows 7 (Build 7000) on the HP Mini and found that it does very well with it. It does use up about 60% of the available memory, but that is quickly remedied by putting in a USB flash drive and enabling ReadyBoost on it. I do intend to replace the 1 GB RAM module with a 2GB one (by swiping one of the 2 GB modules in my MacBook).

For those that are worried about Visual Studio's performance in a netbook, I'm happy to report that it does run nicely (so far). I haven't loaded a decently sized project, but I will soon enough to see how it handles.

 

If you are considering the 2140, also check out the asus eee 1000he. Similar specs but the HE get up to 9hrs of battery and is $100 less.

 

$75 coupon off non-technology items. Netbooks were considered as not tech items!!!! hahaha

It's fixed now though.

 

^ hahahahaha! LOLOL. they might as well have applied the 20% off coupon on office stationary ;-D